Ad in the book

Well it's that time again to setup advertising for next years "book" I've got a few things at play and just wondered what everybody else thinks.

First of all, most of our work comes by word of mouth because of the good name we have earned since '87. We also have the first listing for roofers, and the largest. The largest is because they threw us a good deal about four years ago, bundling it with an internet package. Now, after thinking about it, I'd prefer not to have the biggest ad because we want people looking for the best work, not the biggest outfit. We want people who have heard of us, and preferably just find our number in the book.

I would drop it down to a small ad to save some overhead BUT they won't let us. If we drop it down, we don't save much and get kicked to the back of the list. :angry:

We use to have about a dozen guys but over the last four years have let many of them go to focus on installing the best possible roof every time and to be more efficient.

Do you think that consumers would like to see an ad and think it's a large business, or would they rather know that we are a small group of very experienced guys who almost always have the owners highly involved?

It's been a long time, and how much has changed.

 

Yeah, agree.

Well it's that time again to setup advertising for next years "book" I've got a few things at play and just wondered what everybody else thinks.

First of all, most of our work comes by word of mouth because of the good name we have earned since '87. We also have the first listing for roofers, and the largest. The largest is because they threw us a good deal about four years ago, bundling it with an internet package. Now, after thinking about it, I'd prefer not to have the biggest ad because we want people looking for the best work, not the biggest outfit. We want people who have heard of us, and preferably just find our number in the book.

I would drop it down to a small ad to save some overhead BUT they won't let us. If we drop it down, we don't save much and get kicked to the back of the list. :angry:

We use to have about a dozen guys but over the last four years have let many of them go to focus on installing the best possible roof every time and to be more efficient.

Do you think that consumers would like to see an ad and think it's a large business, or would they rather know that we are a small group of very experienced guys who almost always have the owners highly involved?

-clvr83

Too bad it's not relevant anymore https://freebooksummary.com/category/the-grapes-of-wrath

It's been a long time, and how much has changed.

Saturday I sold a repair that the customer admitted to getting my name from the yellow pages. First one in a long time that I can remember and yes, she was old.

I've had just the smallest column ad they allow for many years.

I doubt I've used the yellow pages in 5 years. Probably haven't looked at a phonebook more than 3 times in the same period.

Decisions decisions. Very good point GSD.

We get ol' ladies, young couples with their first house (guys w/ young ol' ladies) and all groups in between. I couldn't put a range on our average customer.

Yellowbook can piss right off. They were charging my Dad an insane amount for a single webpage that had a picture of a house that you could barely see the roof.

I had 4 jobs come in today. :)

Two website.

One referral. ( from a website client )

One Yellow Pages.

When we dropped AT&T for our phone service they dropped us from the book. It affected us so much that I didn't realize it for about 4 months. Busy as ever and no overhead from the phone company.

My demographics here include all ages and all that call get me from the internet or referrals. No hard copy. The YP is focused on how big an ad can be, so with pages of roofers here, I dropped out. Then, they listed me anyway! And wanted money. I told them to unlist me and that's when i found they are required to list businesses. They wanted more for me to be unlisted! I refused to pay for that, so now I've had an unwanted listing for about 18 years now.

Referrals and internet are the way to go. :)

With a good sized ad in the original Yellow Pages, I could draw a lot of calls for repair but what good is that if I have to give all the money over to them?

Yellow Book gave me a very good deal for a half page ad in two seperate counties/books so I went with that.

Now Yellow Pages is calling and I don't think I can afford to re-up with them this time. I'm gonna tell them I need a bigger ad but can pay NO more.

They will probably just laugh at me and me at them and that will be the end.

I believe that the yellow pages are about a thing of the past. I don't use them anymore and most people just google what they want.

I tried a couple different books. Yellowbook, Yellow pages for a few years. Didn't get the response I'd hoped for and the type of lead wasn't that great. They seemed to want to go with the cheapest bid. I opted out. Do my website, Distinctiveroofingaz.com and work my referrals and repeat clients. Keeps 30 of us busy.

Another thing I learned, alot of people keep the same book around for a few years. they have notes, marks, numbers in the books that they don't want to lose. so they hold on to them for a couple years. I would always ask where they got our number from, and they would say the phone book, even though we weren't in it for a couple years.

I'm thinking there is another element in this decision. The age of your target audience. I am sure after all these years you have come up with some demographics of the age of your customers (re-roofing audience). So I am 55 and I don't use the phone book anymore. How old is your target audience. I miss them when I need a booster seat for a kid though.

We were in the biggest city in the state and thus the rates to be in the book were the highest.

Those were the numbers at the end when it became too high to be worthwhile anymore.